Seventh Grave & No Body - Darynda Jones

It took me a long time 

to gobble this one.

But it was not due to the book,

but that I was uber busy.

A flight home from Dubai

gave me the time I needed 

to catch up with Charley, Reyes,

Cookie and the gang.

The fun stuff included:

Cookie and Ubie are a couple.

And a cute one.

Osh, aka The Dealer

is a fun and intriguing new character.

I can't wait to see more of him.

Reyes pushes Charley to learn

more about her powers.

And then there's Jessica.

Dead, but not gone.

Will she continue to be a pest?

This time around,

Charley has to deal with a bunch of people

disappearing,

leaving behind suicide notes.

But they didn't write the notes.

She looks for a grave robber,

deals with the Twelve Hell Hounds

and learns the Vatican has been spying on her.

Oh, and then there's her dad.

He's gone missing.

Yes, 

life with Charley is never boring!

Gotta love that girl! 

This Makes Me Happy

There are many things that can make me

happy.

This weekend,

I was in Dubai.

And while the weather,

shopping,

food and

 mates

were great,

there was something else

that made me truely happy.

I attended a Cultures of Thinking

workshop

presented by Ron Ritchhart.

To spend 2 days,

listening to this man

was inspiring.

And truely made me happy.

Writer's Workshop - Power's Out

List 7 ways to survive a power outage.

Oh MamaKat,

how you make me laugh!

I mean really?

Seriously?

Do you really know what it means 

to have a power outage?

I'm talking serious outages,

for days, 

weeks,

months.

Not just the bad weather,

oops power's out,

city is under emergency

outages.

I'm talking about the 

welcome to my world,

summer's here,

so the power goes off

every day,

for hours,

for weeks.

So,

I consider myself the expert

on power outages.

In fact,

just two weeks ago,

we had serious power issues

that we had no power for the entire weekend.

So here are the top 7 things,

for power outage survival:

7. Live in a house that has a pool.

It's getting hotter and hotter here.

Summer is on it's way.

Which means the power issues will continue.

You'll need to cool off,

so make sure you have a pool.

6. Do not have a lot of meat in your freezer.

We learnt this the hard way.

Years ago,

we had a mate that went hunting

and brought us some buffalo meat.

It sat in our freezer.

Then the power went off. 

And the meat went bad.

So we threw it out.

Only,

it left behind a horrible stench.

And I mean horrible.

And virtually impossible to get rid off.

It was gross!

5. Have lots of fruit, veggies 
and water handy.
Cos if the power's going to be out for a long time
you won't be able to cook,
unless.....

4. Use a gas cooker.
....you have one of these.
Because with the gas cooker,
as long as you have matches,
you're all set.

3. Get matches. And candles.
That way you can at least walk around the house
without walking into anything.

2. Stay at a hotel. 
Seriously,
if the power's going to be out
for a long time,
and the house is too hot to bear,
stay at a hotel!
The bonus is you get an awesome breakfast
in the morning.

1. Get a generator.

Yes it can be noisy.

Yes the fuel is expensive.

Yes, there are times there's a fuel shortage,

but seriously,

get a generator!